(Article for publication week of 4-8-2009 AD)
“If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” (I John 2:29).
Last week we set before you the practice of righteousness as a vital and indispensable evidence of regeneration. Unless you are habitually practicing righteousness, you are not born again and you are not saved. And I repeat emphatically that we are talking about evidence of salvation, not the cause. As others have put it so well, good works are a good evidence of salvation, but a rotten basis for salvation.
As in every other aspect of Christian faith and practice, we must be careful to stay in the narrow way of truth. The truth is as narrow as a razor’s edge, and for that reason multitudes fall over a cliff on either side to the eternal destruction of their souls. The practice of righteousness must be defined by the truth of God’s word, not by your vain imagination. How many times have we heard certain unbelievers described as a person “who would give you the shirt off his back.” Or how many times we have heard of other unbelievers described as “a good old boy.” My friends , there are multitudes of “good old boys” who “gave the shirt off their backs” in hell right now, and many of you are headed there also. Some of you think because you gave a dollar to the Red Cross or wrote a check to the church that you are practicing righteousness. Some of you think because you are a liberal do-gooder that you must be a Christian. But as we shall see the Biblical practice of righteousness is far different than humanitarianism.
The first thing we need to see about the practice of righteousness is that it must be what God has commanded in His inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient word. In Matthew 15:9 our Lord Jesus Christ said, ”in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Now to those of you who claim to be Christians, and suppose to be practicing righteousness, I direct a question. Are you doing what God commanded in His word (and that is the only way we know what God commanded), or, are you doing what you imagined to be righteousness? Are your good works such as you have warrant from scripture, or are they such as you learned from sociology? I tell you , you had better be sure. It will do us well to bring every idea and belief and practice we have to the measuring line of the scripture and see if it lines up. Proverbs 14:12 says “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ways thereof are the ways of death.” You need to ask yourself if your beliefs come from the scriptures , or from some other source. The majority of you actually believe a pack of lies rather than the scripture. The vast majority of you have been brainwashed in the government “schools”. You believe in "humanitarianism", "socialism", "evolutionism" and everything except the word of God. You have been trained in a system that by its very nature is anti-Christian. And many of you have been duped by false prophets in “church” and state. The majority of you have a world view based on what you heard on the television or the radio, and it is vastly different from a biblical world view. I repeat, good works are only what God has commanded in His word.
The practice of righteousness is not optional. It is absolutely necessary for salvation. Search the scriptures so you will know what the biblical practice of righteousness is.
“If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that everyone that doeth righteousness is born of Him.” (I John 2:29).
Last week we set before you the practice of righteousness as a vital and indispensable evidence of regeneration. Unless you are habitually practicing righteousness, you are not born again and you are not saved. And I repeat emphatically that we are talking about evidence of salvation, not the cause. As others have put it so well, good works are a good evidence of salvation, but a rotten basis for salvation.
As in every other aspect of Christian faith and practice, we must be careful to stay in the narrow way of truth. The truth is as narrow as a razor’s edge, and for that reason multitudes fall over a cliff on either side to the eternal destruction of their souls. The practice of righteousness must be defined by the truth of God’s word, not by your vain imagination. How many times have we heard certain unbelievers described as a person “who would give you the shirt off his back.” Or how many times we have heard of other unbelievers described as “a good old boy.” My friends , there are multitudes of “good old boys” who “gave the shirt off their backs” in hell right now, and many of you are headed there also. Some of you think because you gave a dollar to the Red Cross or wrote a check to the church that you are practicing righteousness. Some of you think because you are a liberal do-gooder that you must be a Christian. But as we shall see the Biblical practice of righteousness is far different than humanitarianism.
The first thing we need to see about the practice of righteousness is that it must be what God has commanded in His inspired, inerrant, infallible, authoritative, sufficient word. In Matthew 15:9 our Lord Jesus Christ said, ”in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.” Now to those of you who claim to be Christians, and suppose to be practicing righteousness, I direct a question. Are you doing what God commanded in His word (and that is the only way we know what God commanded), or, are you doing what you imagined to be righteousness? Are your good works such as you have warrant from scripture, or are they such as you learned from sociology? I tell you , you had better be sure. It will do us well to bring every idea and belief and practice we have to the measuring line of the scripture and see if it lines up. Proverbs 14:12 says “there is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the ways thereof are the ways of death.” You need to ask yourself if your beliefs come from the scriptures , or from some other source. The majority of you actually believe a pack of lies rather than the scripture. The vast majority of you have been brainwashed in the government “schools”. You believe in "humanitarianism", "socialism", "evolutionism" and everything except the word of God. You have been trained in a system that by its very nature is anti-Christian. And many of you have been duped by false prophets in “church” and state. The majority of you have a world view based on what you heard on the television or the radio, and it is vastly different from a biblical world view. I repeat, good works are only what God has commanded in His word.
The practice of righteousness is not optional. It is absolutely necessary for salvation. Search the scriptures so you will know what the biblical practice of righteousness is.
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